


don't mess with me (for I don't walk alone)

by spookyscaryskeletons (Buttons15)



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Horror, Loosely Canon Compliant, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/spookyscaryskeletons
Summary: "The problem was, Veronica thought too fast, but she took a while to start feeling things.The problem was, Veronica was a brakeless freight truck going downhill, but Veronica was also the miserable passerby said truck was invariably going to run over.There was such a thing as a moral hangover, and Veronica was absolutely feeling it."--in which Veronica is trying really hard to be a better person, but she's so damn inclined to be mean, it's a bit of a challenge(to make things worse, she might be crushing on the local cute blonde)(to make things worse still, maybe the town is infested with an evil cult)
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 42
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

Veronica Lodge was an asshole, and she damn well knew that.

The problem was, up until very recently, she didn’t really mind. She’d rip and break and tear apart anyone she could get her hands on, mostly because she wanted to know how far she could push people and she didn’t care about the consequences. Back in New York she’d made an informed and deliberate choice to cause harm, but when she finally grasped a little bit of empathy and decided to drop her cruelty, she found that even without making an effort, she was just sort of mean-spirited.

Veronica supposed a good person, a real good one, would feel guilty about her past. She did, in a way. But Veronica was all about acting, not dwelling. Guilt had inspired her to attempt to be better, and once she had decided what she’d do about it, then guilt lost its utility and Veronica let the feeling go.

She supposed she should hate herself, too, but she didn’t. She’d wake up and look in the mirror every day, and she’d see a supremely confident, gorgeous, intelligent and powerful young woman who knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. A class-A bastard, too, but really, who wasn’t?

 _Check yourself, Veronica_ , she told herself as she walked through the school door to meet the friendly blonde she’d gotten acquainted with during the previous night at Pop’s. She put on her friendliest smile to greet her. “Good morning.” She was terrible with names, but she made some extra effort. “Elizabeth Cooper, right?”

Elizabeth smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Everyone just calls me Betty.”

Veronica arched an eyebrow. “Betty, huh? Not a Liz or a Liza or Lizzie, not a Beth, but a Betty. Interesting. Is there a story behind that? Why did you choose Betty, rather than any of the others?”

“I –” Elizabeth blinked. “I don’t know. I – I didn’t really choose it. I guess people always called me that.”

“A beautiful name, full of possibilities,” Veronica babbled. They walked down the corridor, old floor and paint peeling off the walls. She supposed it was charming on its own vintage way. “A queen’s name. Well, several queens, one of which just might be an immortal eldritch horror. Several fascinating characters, too. Bennet, March, Schuyler –”

“Salvatore?”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Veronica grinned. “Well color me impressed, Cooper. I did not take you for a geek.” She ran her eyes over Betty – simple jeans, a cardigan, the body language of someone who tries to make herself as small as possible. “Though I suppose it makes sense.”

Betty winced, and Veronica resisted the urge to slap herself. There it was – careless words slipping from between her lips, innocuous through her eyes but not so much to anyone else who did not share her thick skin.

_(She’d call it thick skin, but perhaps it was really just insensitivity. Perhaps it was just the most glaring tell of whatever was wrong deep inside her.)_

“In a good way!” Veronica quickly added. “Geeks are in vogue. Geeks are cool!”

Betty, thankfully, responded with a small smile that felt much more sincere than her first. “What about you? Veronica. What do you go by?”

“Ronnie. My choice.” She shrugged. “Not much to pick from, really. ‘Vera’ makes me sound like a senior citizen. ‘Nikki’ makes it easy to mistake me for a Nicole, and ‘Veron’ sounds too much like a guy’s name.”

“Vee?”

Veronica considered it. “Acceptable. You may call me that. Maybe it’ll stick. I wouldn’t mind it if it did.” She nodded absently. “So, school tour? Anything to tell me about this charming… neodadaist… no, ‘neo’ implies new and there’s nothing new about this monstrosity of a building. This is more like Brutalism than Dadaism, too. Nonsensical design, yes, but mostly very…bare.”

Betty smiled again, much wider this time, and Veronica found herself smiling back.

* * *

The thing about her deadly inclination towards being an asshole was that Veronica knew without a doubt that sooner or later it would come out. Not unlike a werewolf, not unlike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, she would eventually fall back into old habits – habits that she was coming to learn were really just her true colors showing. Veronica knew that, too. All things considered, she knew herself fairly well.

But she was the type of person who did her best with the hand she’d been dealt, and so that was how she found herself on her current predicament. Veronica sat on the geek table, together with charmingly shy Betty, the good-looking redhead jock Betty was clearly heads over heels for – whose name she had, sure as the sun would rise the next day, already forgotten – and Kevin, the school’s and perhaps whole the town’s token gay.

_(Veronica supposed that made her Riverdale’s token bisexual, and so it made even more sense she’d sit there – queer kids attracted each other like magnets.)_

And though Kevin made a point to bring up her heritage when they first met, once that initial disagreement had worn off they got along just fine. Neither he nor Betty and Archer seemed to particularly mind her family’s dark deeds. It was a refreshing break from New York, her chance to have a clean slate, if only she could keep herself from being terrible.

She toned in and off conversation, mostly focusing on people watching. It didn’t come naturally to her, this whole people skills business. Deep down, in her core, Veronica was an awkward person, expertly masked by the fact that she was both diligent and supremely confident. Then Betty said something that caught her attention.

“Cheerleading?” Veronica tilted her head, trying to fit that into the mental picture of Elizabeth Cooper she was gradually building. Geeks and cheerleaders didn’t traditionally get along, but Veronica was all in for shaking things up. “You should do it.”

Betty tilted her head and looked at Veronica as if she’d just grown a third eye. “Oh I’d love to, but Cheryl…” she trailed off. “We’ve… there’s bad blood between us, let’s say. She wouldn’t let me into the Vixens even if I were painted in gold.”

And though Veronica hadn’t had a run in with this Cheryl – not yet, at least – she could whiff an opportunity from miles away. “Nonsense,” she said, and grinned. “You’ll make a fine vixen, Betty Cooper.”

* * *

The first (and only) time Hermione Lodge was called into Veronica’s school for misbehavior, Veronica was in middle school. And looking back into it, the whole affair wasn’t that much of a big deal. There was a science fair, and Veronica got second place, and she’d always been crazy competitive. So when the first prize wasn’t given to her, she turned around and torn the winner’s experiment to pieces.

It had been a tantrum – typical behavior from the rich entitled child that she was. As she sat on the car on the way back home, Veronica supposed she should have been afraid of her mother’s wrath. Except Hermione didn’t do rage. Hermione didn’t do much emotion, not at all. What Hermione did was talking, arguments and lessons, none of which were scary to Veronica.

The silence was not a tense one, but she broke it anyway. “Mommy, are you mad?”

“Hmm.” From the car’s mirror, little Veronica could see Hermione’s face was impassive. “That depends on whether you’ve learned your lesson.”

Veronica tilted her head, genuinely curious as she’d always been. “What’s my lesson?”

“Think about it, dear. What was the point of your little… outburst? What did you win?” Hermione paused and gave Veronica time to think.

And think Veronica did. She thought about it for a long while. “Nothing?”

“Exactly.” Hermione turned the car off and turned around to look at her. “So this is your lesson, Ronnie. If you’re going to destroy something, do it for a good reason. Do it because you’ll get something from it. And, most importantly,” Hermione smiled, “Don’t get caught.”

Veronica nodded, and Veronica learned, and Hermione Lodge was never called in school again.

* * *

Veronica’s misbehavior problems – and she was quite aware she had them, even if she hardly ever suffered the consequences – didn’t stem for any inner anger, not at first. Unlike many of her classmates, who held deep resentment towards their rich yet absent parents, Veronica didn’t feel the need to lash out as a cry for help against emotional abandonment, perhaps because she, not unlike her mother, wasn’t a very emotional person. 

No, her misbehavior problems at first derived from her insatiable curiosity. But as she grew older, as little seeds of caring and empathy finally sprouted from her stone heart and she realized pushing people to her limits was not a nice thing, Veronica understood that a lack of sensitivity was only half the problem.

The other half of the problem being that when she caught sight of an objective, she was like a freight truck going downhill without brakes. “Trust me,” she told Betty, and Betty did, because Veronica was a goddamn con artist. Veronica looked her in the eyes and kissed her, meaning it to be theatrical, daring, shocking to the small town of Riverdale.

_(Except maybe she didn’t. Maybe she found Elizabeth Cooper cute. Maybe she just wanted to kiss her.)_

It wasn’t a good kiss, objectively speaking. She’d had far better ones – more skilled, more heated. But it was an unexpectedly sincere one. She’d expected shyness from Betty, but when they broke apart, she was sure she saw a flick of hunger in her eyes.

“Faux-lesbian kissing?” Cheryl questioned, disgust evident in her tone, but Veronica wasn’t paying a lot of attention.

_(She wanted to kiss Elizabeth Cooper again.)_

Now Cheryl was running her mouth, saying something or the other that Veronica didn’t hear, because she was looking at Betty and Betty was clenching her fists and Veronica was sure she could see glimpses of blood sipping between her fingers. And there was hurt in her face, more than Veronica expected, and she updated her mental picture of Betty once again.

But first things first. Cheryl was still talking and Veronica finally had her chance to, as the poet once said, let the dogs out.

Veronica stepped forward, and she smiled, and she spoke.

By the time she was done, she could see unquestionable fear in Cheryl’s eyes, and she could feel the unquestionable thrill of power coursing through her veins, her heart thumping hard against her chest. She dipped her head when she grabbed her uniform, looped her arm with Betty’s and walked away, her lips still curled into a smile.

Betty was happy, too, and maybe that made it okay. Veronica knew that side of her would come out eventually – the power-hungry side, the vicious side, the side of her that was competitive and ruthless and liked to be on top. But maybe, if the stars aligned and she did things just right, maybe she could use it for good. Maybe instead of using it to put people down, she could use it to protect people, to stand up for those who wouldn’t stand up for themselves.

It felt good, that glimpse of a potential moral path for her to take. But mostly, she was high on the triumph.

Veronica Lodge felt great.

* * *

Except she didn’t.

Veronica Lodge laid down in her bed, stared at the ceiling and felt like shit.

She’d hurt someone again. Sure, it was Cheryl, who absolutely asked to be taken down a peg. Sure, it had barely been a scratch to her pride. But she’d gone for the throat again. She knew she could hardly stop herself. She knew she’d achieved what she’d set out to do: direct her destructive energy to things which should be torn apart.

And _yet._

Veronica supposed the remorse was a good thing, at least. It meant that unlike her parents, she wasn’t a complete psychopath. She wasn’t a lost cause. Yet. It meant there was hope for her, if only she could find a moral code and stick to it like superglue. It gave her fuel to try again. And she was trying so damn hard, she really was.

She covered her face with a pillow and let out a long, loud groan. She used to own massive bookshelves in every single one of the family’s properties, before she migrated to much more eco-friendly digital readers. And Veronica’s digital library – an impressive, extensive one – was crammed to the brim with her latest obsession – the philosophy of morality.

The conclusions of her research, unfortunately, were that no one had yet left behind a good people manual, and that that she’d have to figure things out by herself. She had fantastic role models in her parents, in the sense that whenever she needed ethical guidance, she could ask herself what they would do, then go ahead and do the exact opposite. That was usually a good place to start.

Her parents would approve of her asserting her dominance. Logically, she agreed with that. Machiavelli did say if a ruler had to pick, it was better to be feared than loved, and though Veronica was a ruler at heart, there was a difference between a boss and a leader. She wanted to be the latter. Machiavelli be damned, Veronica was sixteen, she wanted to be loved, and when she wanted something, she fought for it tooth and nail.

Even if sometimes what she had to fight was her own inner chaos.

When she walked into Cheryl’s party, Veronica was determined to make amends. She wouldn’t apologize – that would be too much of a show of weakness, and Cheryl would surely use it to step on her – but she’d offer her an olive branch somehow. She didn’t know how, not yet, but Veronica was smart and she knew how to seize whatever opportunity she saw.

_(Her intelligence, unfortunately, was often the thing dragging into trouble. That and the fact that she was an irreparable, amoral douchebag.)_

The problem was, and god damn it, Veronica was learning she had a _lot_ of problems, the problem was that as Nietzsche so eloquently put it, God was dead, nothing mattered and therefore she was doomed to unhappiness. And as Epicurus put it, since she was going to be miserable, she might as well seek pleasure whenever she could.

_(Kierkegaard would say that happiness derived precisely from the lack of meaning, but Veronica had yet to see things this way.)_

The problem was that she’d kissed Elizabeth Cooper once, and she wanted to do it again. But Betty was in love with Archie Andrews who, albeit kind-hearted, clearly did not reciprocate. Veronica could tell, what with the way he’d all but stripped her with his eyes on that first night at Pop’s. Now Hannah Arendt would say evil was a banal thing, born from the lack of thinking and the lack of reflection.

But Veronica found _her_ problem was the exact opposite of that. She thought things out, but she thought too fast, and by the time she was done thinking, most people weren’t even done feeling.

“Rules are clear,” Cheryl smiled. “If you don’t go into the closet with Archie, I get to take your place!” Her tone was sickly sweet like the sadistic bastard she was, but oh she had no idea with whom she was dealing with. Because Veronica was a bastard san the sadism, and that made her a much more efficient motherfucker.

She saw the pain in Betty’s eyes at Cheryl’s words and stepped forward. “No, I’ll do it.”

And there was her goddamn opportunity. Because Archie, himbo that he was, was also… Betty would call him soft and laidback. Veronica would use less kind words, like _dense_ and _spineless_. Archie would not, as he should, turn Cheryl down. So it was up to her, once again, to get things done. She could put Cheryl in her place and earn Betty’s trust, or she could walk into that closet, break her heart and then try to win her over.

They walked into the closet together, a place cramped and dark enough that that if she hung around for longer than the mandatory seven minutes, she’d start feeling claustrophobic. And though she was there with Archie, her mind was running a thousand miles an hour to the consequences of her choice.

_(Bené Brown said vulnerability was the birthplace of love, empathy and belonging. Veronica knew sometimes, throwing a rock through a window and breaking in was more efficient than waiting for a door to open.)_

Archie was still talking to her, and it was getting in the way of her thoughts. Veronica had a one-track mind and she was terrible at multitasking. Archie leaned in, and when Veronica kissed him, he was finally quiet enough that she could figure out her next steps.

* * *

The problem was, Veronica thought too fast, but she took a while to start feeling things.

The problem was, Veronica was a brakeless freight truck going downhill, but Veronica was also the miserable passerby said truck was invariably going to run over.

There was such a thing as a moral hangover, and Veronica was absolutely feeling it.

She was a terrible person. She was terrible to Archie, she was terrible to Betty, she was an unchained force of destruction and although she’d had the briefest illusion that she could somehow control it, clearly, she could not.

_(She used to worry that her parents were psychopaths, particularly after her dad got arrested. She stopped worrying when it became a certainty.)_

She had to apologize to Betty, and so she used her whole arsenal – flowers, cupcakes, a makeover. She meant it, too. Her apology was heartfelt. Never mind that it was also _exactly_ what past-Veronica had carefully calculated she’d do. Never mind that she planed ahead so meticulously, she even planned for her own emotional reactions.

_(Recently, though, Veronica was really, really scared that the nature-versus-nurture balance wasn’t in her favor and she’d turn out just like them.)_

Veronica looked at herself in the mirror and saw a confident, powerful, intelligent and gorgeous asshole. There was no way around it: she needed therapy. She one hundred per cent needed therapy. Veronica would get therapy as soon as she managed to wrangle some manner of financial control from her parent’s clutches. Because of _course_ , they didn’t believe in therapy. It was harder to groom someone into a psycho if that person had a shrink, she supposed.

So she did the next best thing – she lit up one thick white candle and prayed to the orixás for guidance. Veronica wasn’t strongly religious, but the Umbanda syncretism traditions had been on her family for god knew how many generations, and she found comfort in the rituals. Her granny would tell her, when she was younger, that there was no bad energy that could survive a good bath of salt, rue and white roses.

As she watched her tub fill and the fragrant smell of herbs permeate her home, Veronica wondered whether she could call the consequences of her own actions ‘bad energy’, too. She sunk into the warm water, dunked her head in and held her breath for so long, her lungs felt like they were going to burst. She managed to mentally pray three holy fathers before she had to surface for air.

When she did, she picked rose petals off her hair before shaking the excess moisture off. She dunked her head in again and felt her muscles relax. And then covered her face with her palms and let out a strangled sob. Once she’d started, it was nearly impossible to stop, and she cried until her throat felt raw and her stomach turned.

_(She wanted to be good, she wanted it so very much, she wanted it with every fiber of her being and yet she didn’t know how -)_

She wiped the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand. She was shaking from head to toe and shaking she remained, until the water grew cold and she shivered so much her teeth chattered. Veronica stepped out of the water, pulled the plug from the tub and watched it spin and spin and spin –

She took a deep breath, wrapped herself in her towel and walked to her room. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a lot of anger and a lot of darkness. She also saw a sixteen-year-old kid who knew more than she should and carried the weight of that knowledge. Sartre would say, basically, that it was all her responsibility, and those were the words she lived by. When she opened her drawer to grab a comb, her hand brushed against something cool and metallic.

Veronica frowned, pulling out a silver bracelet. Her lips curled into a smile as she wrapped it around her wrist. It had belonged to her grandmother, a prayer amulet she’d passed on when Veronica turned twelve, and she couldn’t help but think her finding in right then had some meaning. It felt warm against her skin when she put it on.

She felt a bit better, when she ruffled her hair dry with the towel and slipped into her pajamas. She just wasn’t sure whether that made her a better person or a worse one.

* * *

Veronica sat on a booth in front of Betty Cooper, sipping on a milkshake that was entirely too sweet, and she was having the time of her life, crippling weight of her terrible character notwithstanding. Betty forgave her, because Betty was like that – a good, kind and honest person. Not to mention a cute one.

“ _Puta mierda,_ ” Veronica grinned, then took a sip of her drink. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Really? Your mom sounds like an Orwellian nightmare.”

“You have no idea,” Betty leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret?”

 _You have no idea how many I’ve been keeping_ , she thought, then nodded. “Hit me.”

“You know they found Jason Blossom’s body, yeah? My mother was there at the autopsy, you… you’ll read all about it, tomorrow. Which is a completely immoral thing to publish, I know, but as you’ve just learned, my mom –”

“Completely bonkers.” Veronica nodded. “So, anything juicy?”

“It’s… weird, Ronnie,” Betty drummed her fingers against the table, and Veronica couldn’t help but appreciate the way her nickname sounded on her lips. “They think it was a murder.”

“A murder?” she frowned. “Forgive me if I haven’t mastered my Riverdale lore, but we were all assuming so far that it was a drowning?”

“That’s the thing. The police thought so, too, until they opened his body. His insides were missing… a lot of organs. The heart, the kidneys, the liver, the lungs.” Betty leaned back against her seat and sipped from her drink. “And the strangest of it all? There were no cuts. The skin was intact, there was nowhere they could have harvested those organs from, and yet they were missing, almost as if… as if he never had them on first place. He was empty inside, and no one can figure out how or why.”

“Huh.” Veronica licked her lips, fascinated, tasting chocolate. “The hell. I can’t even… how? And _why_? You think this is some… creepy organ trafficking scheme? Oh my god.” She smiled. “This town gets more and more interesting every day.”

“An organ harvest has to happen with the donor alive though, doesn’t it? Or, well, brain dead but with a heart still beating, at least. And from Cheryl’s story, Jason fell into the river and drowned. No, it must have happened after his death.”

“Or…” Veronica trailed off and paused to think. “Or someone was already waiting for him, near the river, and snatched him right out of the water. But the lack of cuts on his skin remains a mystery. If they did it postmortem, though, the main question remains. Why? What does one do with a bunch of useless dead organs?”

Betty shrugged dramatically. “Satanic rituals? Weird cannibalistic cults? Who knows.”

Veronica’s hand touched the bracelet on her wrist, then she knocked three times on the wooden table. “I am a god-fearing Latina, _chica_.” She grabbed her milkshake glass, sipped in, then pointed the glass at Betty. “If you Riverdale _gringos_ are messing with black magic, I’m staying the hell away from it.”

“Steer clear from Greendale, then.”

“Greendale is where the Satanists live?”

“Yes.” Betty’s tone was nonchalant, and when she didn’t elaborate, Veronica wondered if she was missing some sort of Riverdale inner joke. But her face was serious enough that Veronica frowned and stored the information into a neat box in her brain, because she was always inclined to trust the locals.

Betty finished her milkshake, and Veronica’s eyes drifted to her hands, to the fingers she dug so deep into her own palms she drew blood. She wasn’t quite sure how to bring up the topic, so she did it the way she did it best: directly. She grabbed Betty’s wrists, gently, giving her a chance to pull away. She didn’t, and after a moment of rubbing gentle circles on her skin, Veronica spoke again.

“Do you…” she drifted her fingers down to Betty’s palms, over the still fresh scars. “Would you like to talk about this?”

Betty regarded her for a long moment, inexpressive. “No. Not today. But thank you for asking.” Veronica nodded and began to pull her hands back, but Betty grabbed them between hers and gave them a squeeze, then a smile. “And, Ronnie? Can you promise me something?”

“That depends on what.” She tilted her head. With how much remorse she was still ruminating, she was inclined to make bad decisions, and she knew it was dangerous to make any sort of promise she’d either follow through recklessly or break and feel awful about.

“Promise me we’ll never let a boy get between us again.”

 _Well that is an easy one_ , Veronica smiled. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "buttons what the hell is this, will you please stop fandom hopping like a kangaroo on acid?"  
> probably not. besides, my beta needed a break from all my frozen fanfictioning
> 
> "...riverdale? you're gonna be disappointed"  
> my friend I put on my clown suit on the moment I saw "the CW" and by the time I heard the words "faux-lesbian kissing" my clown make-up was already fully done
> 
> "tell us more about this story, then"  
> Veronica Lodge is amazing as a character and I feel a mighty need to write her and explore her character in canon and non canon ways. Also, I am fascinated by the idea that riverdale and sabrina are canon within each other, so while archie makes out with his music teacher, on the other side of the river, satanists cannibalize human sacrifices in rituals 
> 
> "what's different about this veronica?"  
> I've made her more of a latina, cause despite her heritage I've never once seen her use the word "puta" and that's absurd. And though she's catholic in canon, here I've made her a member of umbanda, an african-american religion that is christian but partakes in heavy syncretism. it's a brazilian religion, which is a subtle nod to the fact that veronica's actress is brazilian
> 
> (and so am I and also I wanted her to be umbanda)
> 
> "anything last notes?"  
> satanism and magic are canon in this universe and I'm a horror writer and I plan to make full use of that


	2. Chapter 2

Veronica Lodge was trying to be a better person. That was the reason she followed Cheryl into the changing rooms and comforted her – for once, an entirely altruistic impulse to do the right thing. So when Cheryl texted her, inviting her for a sleepover, Veronica figured showing up was yet another step in the path of virtue, even if her relationship with Cheryl was a shaky one at best.

What she did not know or expect – and damn, she should have texted Betty about this – was that Thornhill was, and there were no other words for it, absolutely haunted. Each step made her skin crawl with goosebumps. By the time she sat down by the dinner table, she had no appetite whatsoever and a desperate desire to go home. It didn’t help that the sleepover turned out to be less of a friendly gathering and more of a… sinister meet-my-parents date.

There was something wrong with Thornhill, something terrible, something malignant that seemed to crawl under her skin down to her very bones. The air itself felt thick with something noxious, and when she put the food in her mouth, she had a hard time swallowing. Cheryl was acting strange, though she supposed not much stranger than usual, and Cheryl’s mother gave Veronica the creeps, but it wasn’t until Cliff Blossom sat down that her desire to leave became a need.

There was something wrong with Thornhill, but whatever it was, it did not come near whatever was wrong with that man. Because Cliff Blossom wasn’t just an entitled rich white man. He wasn’t even a goddamn _mafioso_ like Veronica’s own parents. Cliff Blossom was something else entirely – something so evil, so vile, Veronica could not even begin to understand.

She made small talk with the Blossoms, desperately seeking any opportunity for a timely escape.

“Veronica, would you like some more ham?” Cliff asked, even though her plate was still full.

She didn’t meet his eyes. It was usually a show of weakness to avoid eye contact, but with him, Veronica got the strangest sense that the less she glanced upon him, the better. “No, thank you. It’s fantastic, though.”

Cliff spoke something or other about Riverdale history. Veronica mumbled something noncommittal.

“And how’s your father doing in prison?”

Veronica stuffed her mouth full to prevent herself from answering. Questions about her father were a sore spot that made her temper flare up, but right then she had such a strong sense of alarm and danger, she managed to hold back the venom she would have usually spilled. “He’s okay.”

_(don’t look at him there’s something sinister)_

“It must have been hard for you.” His voice was deep, rich, oddly alluring.

Veronica’s fingers subconsciously drifted to the bracelet on her arm. It seemed to be growing warmer and warmer with each word, and when her fingers touched the metal she had a surreal flash of –

_(a hand through his chest tearing out his still beating heart)_

Veronica inhaled sharply. Her pulse quickened. Cliff was still talking. “ – handcuffed in front of you and your neighbors.”

_(don’t look)_

She didn’t look. She didn’t answer. She turned to Cheryl instead, and what she saw in her eyes was complete panic. The bracelet on her arm was uncomfortably hot, and she tried to wrangle it free from her wrist, but it wouldn’t come off.

“Miss Lodge?” Despite her best efforts, Veronica couldn’t stop herself from turning. He looked like a perfectly normal man. He looked like – “What do you think about it?”

_(don’t talk don’t talk)_

“The worst part was how fast it happened,” She found the words slipping her lips against her will as if ripped from her throat. It was the truth, a truth she had revealed to none, torn from her in what could only be a violation of her mind – “He was just…gone. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.”

The bracelet on her arm burned so much, she let out a disgruntled sound of pain and clawed at it. If the Blossoms noticed, they didn’t comment on it, and that weirded her out even more. She ran her fingers over each of the pendants hanging from the bracelet, one for each of her orixá, and she ran through their names in her mind.

_(oxóssi, oxalá, iansã, oxum, ogum, iemanjá, xangô, just like her abuela had taught her and oh god, oh Jesus and orixás she was going to die there)_

“Miss Lodge,” Cliff began again, and he was smiling, and for a moment she had the sense he had far too many teeth. “There are some business I’d like to discuss with you.”

Veronica felt sick. Her stomach twisted and turned. She wanted to run, a primal need she acknowledged as her fight or flight response.

_(she was going to die there. she could feel it in her bones that she was not going to walk out of that place alive because cliff blossom was bad news in a way that made even her scared -)_

She opened her mouth to reply even though she didn’t want to, but before she could speak, the silence was broken by the sound of her phone ringing. It took her a couple seconds to realize it was her own ringtone and to take the phone out of her pocket.

_(her phone never fucking rung she always left it on vibrate)_

It was Betty, swooping in like a savior angel. And while it was rude to pick up the phone while on the table, Veronica wasn’t going to waste the lifeline thrown to save her from… whatever that situation was.

“Hey, Ronnie,” Betty’s voice pulled her back to reality. “I, uh… this is going to sound strange, but I suddenly got the feeling I should call you.”

“Elizabeth,” she blinked, grasped for words, eyes darting from Cheryl to Mrs. Blossom but never, ever towards Cliff. “How are you?”

_(shit fuck god damn puta mierda think of something smartass think of something -)_

“I’m good, well, just had a fight with my mom but I – wait, you called me Elizabeth. Ronnie, are you okay?”

She focused on the sound of Betty’s breathing. “Oh no,” she muttered, acutely aware she was being watched. “Is your mom okay? Betty, that’s terrible.”

“My mom? What do you mean, my mom? She’s fine –” _Elizabeth, come ON,_ “ – this is a guise, isn’t it? You’re in danger.”

“Yeah,” She did her best to keep her voice from shaking. “Yes, of course.”

“Where are you? Do you need me to come and pick you up? Kevin’s got a truck, I’ll call him, just tell me a place –”

Veronica’s eyes drifted to Cheryl, and she had a moment of hesitation for ditching her and running, but then she told herself that Cheryl was their daughter and she’d probably be safe from whatever it was that was pushing her into such a panic.

_(her brother wasn’t though, not when they took his liver and his kidneys and left his heart for last and she could see it even though she didn’t want to -)_

“ – Veronica? Veronica, please, for the love of god –”

“Thornhill,” she managed, and her wrist burned, and she could _feel_ the haw hatred being directed at her, and it was so fortunate she wasn’t the type to freeze up. “Oh, it’s on your way? That’s fortunate.”

“ _Thornhill?!_ Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Fifteen – no, ten minutes. I’ll be there. And, um, keep texting me, okay?”

“Sure, Betty, thanks. I’ll be by the door.” Her fingers trembled when she hung up the phone, all eyes in the room on her, and she took a deep, shaky breath and focused on the sensation of her burning skin. “Betty’s mom had an accident. I, um, I have to go.”

“Oh, no.” Cheryl stood, then smiled to her parents and dragged her by the wrist. “I’m so sorry, Vee. Send my regards to her, and let me escort you out.”

Their eyes met. Veronica trusted her, mostly because she had no choice. She let Cheryl guide her from the mansion to the yard and all the way down to the gates. Once they were outside, Veronica began feeling dizzy.

“I’m sorry,” Cheryl mumbled, offering her a hand to lean on. “I didn’t – I didn’t know that they – that my father would –”

She didn’t finish. Veronica was afraid to ask her what exactly her father would do. “Will you be okay?” she asked instead, pressing her back against the wall for support.

“For now, yes,” Cheryl said after a moment of pondering. “And there’s your ride.”

“Thank you –”

She heard the gates open, and before she could finish turning around, Cheryl was already gone.

* * *

Betty hugged her on the moment she stepped out of the truck, squeezing the air out of her lungs, and Veronica was tiny and partially worried she’d get a cracked rib from the encounter. Were she feeling well, she would have protested. But her body was shaking with shivers and her skin was sticky with cold sweat, so when Betty held her, she felt her knees give in, and it was fortunate that Betty’s grip was so tight.

“Ronnie, what did they _do_ to you?” Betty pulled her up the passenger seat, then closed the door, ran around the car and got it running.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, the edges of her vision darkening. Veronica shook her head to keep herself away, “Nothing, I think. I just – get me home.” The truck shook, and it didn’t help with her nausea.

“What? No, you’re clearly sick. You need a hospital.”

 _Not for this kind of sickness I don’t,_ she thought, “ _Que verga,_ Betty, don’t be stubborn –”

“You’re crying, Vee!”

 _I’m not,_ she thought, but when she brought her hand to her cheek, her fingers found the dampness of tears. She watched, stunned, as the drops fell on her jeans. “I –”

“I swear to god,” Betty said, her tone unusually dark. “I swear it, Veronica, if they harmed a single hair on your head, I’m going to –”

“Elizabeth,” She began, but felt too lightheaded to continue speaking. She tried to take a deep breath, but they were coming quick and shallow. The world spun.

“ – Ronnie?” Betty was shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes, her vision blurry. “That’s it, I’m calling an ambulance.”

 _That_ got Veronica back into working shape, and she sat up, nauseous. “No. Help me up the stairs.”

“You’re _rich_ , you can afford the hospital bill,” Betty protested, but extended her hand.

Veronica all but fell from the truck and into Betty’s arms, leaning heavily against her for balance. “This isn’t about the bill. There’s some dark magic going on here.” 

Betty frowned, helping her up the steps. “Listen to yourself. You’re clearly unwell. Did you eat anything? It might have been poisoned. The Blossoms grow all kinds of herbs in Thornhill, I’m sure of them could cause whatever you’re feeling –”

That _was_ a possibility, a sensible one, but Veronica had a gut feeling which she couldn’t ignore.

“ _Gringa_ , listen, I know what I’m talking about. This is witchcraft.” They made their way to the door, and Veronica scrambled for the keys. “My mom is away for the weekend, so –” she was hit by a wave of dizziness so strong she had to brace herself against a wall. “ – just help me in, Betty, please. If I – if I don’t get better, you can call an ambulance.”

“Fine,” Betty took the keys from her hands and unlocked the door, then pushed it closed behind them.

Veronica let herself fall to the ground. “Okay, okay.” She felt as if she were going to faint again, her body fiercely rejecting whatever curse had been placed on her. And perhaps Betty was right and she should just see a doctor, but Veronica couldn’t shake off the feeling that if she didn’t scrub off whatever this was as soon as she could, it might be too late. She pushed herself to her feet. “Can you… inside my closet, bottom drawer. You’ll find some candles. Bring be a red and a blue one. And coarse salt from the kitchen.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Betty said, then made a run for the stairs.

Veronica stumbled to the bathroom and opened both the tub’s faucets. The herbs she’d used for cleansing were neatly stored into the cabinet. She had enough dried roses and rue for several baths, and yet she dumped all of it into the rapidly rising water.

Veronica kicked off her shoes, then her socks. When she was about to pull off her shirt, Betty walked in. “I got what you asked for.”

“Dump the salt in the water,” Veronica replied, then made the mistake of looking herself in the mirror. She understood why Betty was so concerned then – there were deep rings under her eyes, the color had drained from her face and her eyes were bloodshot and _still weeping_ against her will.

“The whole package?”

“Yeah.” Veronica reached for the button in her jeans, but her fingers were too shaky to undo it. She considered giving up, but didn’t want to half-ass the ritual. “You’re… going to have to help me out of these clothes.”

Betty, to her credit, did not hesitate once, despite the growing strangeness of her requests. Betty helped her pull off her shirt, and Veronica nearly fell down when she struggled out of her pants.

“Everything?” Betty asked once Veronica had stripped to her underwear.

Veronica nodded, unclasping her bra. “Light the candles for me.”

Betty paused. “Um, in… in any order? Is there a special way to do this?”

“No, just light them up.” She heard the lighter creak once, then again, taking deep breaths. Betty had closed the faucets, and she stared at the leaves that floated in the water. “You can put them on the floor or on the sink.”

“Okay. It’s done.”

Veronica took a deep breath and stepped into the tub. She hadn’t tested the temperature, but Betty must have, because it was pleasantly warm. She sat down and sunk into the water, closing her eyes and holding her breath before dunking her head in. She counted to ten, resurfaced, then did it again.

On the third time, a strangled sound of surprise made her open her eyes. Betty was staring at her, gaping, and then her hands were on Veronica’s shoulders and she was being pulled out of the water. “Betty –” She protested, but then she turned around and _saw –_

The water had turned a dark red, the color of old blood that clotted over open wounds, and though Veronica’s brain raced to come up with explanations about the chemistry of what she’d mixed in, she knew, from the metallic scent assaulting her nose, she _knew_ from the viscosity of the liquid in her fingers, that it was no longer water.

“I –” She began, but then her stomach turned and she barely had time to stumble to the toilet before throwing up. Betty was there in a split second, pulling back her hair and pressing a cool hand to her forehead, and Veronica could see the smears of _not-water_ stain her shirt.

“Vee, what the fuck –”

Veronica didn’t reply, instead retching again. She puked and coughed and puked some more, until she was out of air and could taste bitter bile on her tongue. Some deep instinct told her to look away then, and Betty was definitely trying to drag her away, but Veronica _looked_ and she caught a glimpse of thousands of worms twisting and turning before Betty flushed them away.

She coughed and shivered. Betty let go of her for a moment, then threw a towel over her shoulders. Veronica’s teeth chattered, her hairs standing on end, and she had the desperate urge to brush her teeth.

“This is bad,” she murmured. “Oh, Betty, this is bad.” She turned around to face Betty and saw that the candles had burned down to stumps, impossibly fast. Veronica took a deep breath, then raised her head and offered Betty a shaky smile. “Told you it was witchcraft. I TOLD you, _pendeja._ ”

Betty stared at her, wide eyed and with another towel in hands. “How – how do we know if this worked?” She stepped forward and rubbed the towel on Veronica’s hair.

Veronica bowed down her head to make it easier. “Well,” she coughed and cleared her throat. “My bathwater turned into blood and I just puked a bucket of worms. Those are good signs that I’ve purged the… evil thing. I hope.”

“You _hope?”_ Betty helped her up. “Because hoping is not good enough. Whatever the fuck this was, I – we have to get to the bottom of this, Ronnie.”

“You promised me the Satanists were in Greendale. I was specifically told I was on the Satan-free side of the river.” Veronica joked, pulling the towel close to her body. She felt impossibly cold, as if her shivers did nothing to warm her up. “I’m going to, uh,” She stared at the tub and at the mess in the bathroom and decided not to deal with it, “I’m going to mom’s bathroom for… another shower. And then I’m going to sit down and pray just to make sure.”

Betty nodded. Veronica grabbed her toothbrush, turned around, paused and looked at Betty. “You can join me, if you want. Um. In prayer, I mean, not in the shower. Though if you want to join me in the shower I wouldn’t object.”

“Good to have you back, Ronnie,” Betty rolled her eyes. “And you know what? I just so happen to be covered in –” she hesitated “ – bath residue, and I’m still not entirely confident that you won’t pass out, hit your head and die, so I think I’ll actually take you up on both offers.”

“…Oh.” She blinked, feeling a treacherous heat in her cheeks, but recovered. “See? This was all an elaborate ploy to see you naked. Veronica Lodge _always_ gets what she wants.”

“Maybe try something with a little less vermin next time,” Betty suggested, smirking and shaking her head. Veronica let Betty place a hand on her shoulder and guide her to the door. “I might have bedded you, but the vermin were decidedly unsexy.”

“Damn.” She smiled at the teasing and she knew Betty was doing it to tear their minds over the eerie incomprehensible thing which had just happened. “I’m dramatic. It’s my charm.”

“Psh. Sure it is. Honestly, Veronica, if you want me to kiss you, you can just ask.” Betty closed the door behind them. “No need for this level of elaborate theatricals.”

“I want you to kiss me.” Veronica led them through the corridor towards her mother’s bedroom. “Or let me kiss you. Whichever. I’m a switch. Completely flexible.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, seriously. Lord be my witness – and you know I ain’t joking about invoking His name after the shit that just went down – Lord be my witness that I want you to kiss me.”

“Not with that vermin mouth, I won’t.” Betty slapped the back of Veronica’s head, and Veronica laughed.

She felt some of her anxiety dissipate, even though she was still dragging god-knows-what all over the house and it would be a nightmare to clean in the morning. “I’ll brush my teeth!” She pushed the door open. “And floss! And rinse!”

“Ronnie, I swear to god –”

This time, when Veronica burst out laughing, Betty smiled, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "buttons they're out of character"  
> yeah i made them better
> 
> they're all gay now
> 
> special thanks to [Lazy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_universes) for teaching me all about her religion's rituals


End file.
